The erasure of us : the alarming increase in the destruction of cultural heritage is robbing us of our future

Abstract

The tremors of war have reached ancient sites around the world. Days after the bombs fell on Falak-Ol-Aflak, a similar attack in Iran damaged the 19th-century Golestan Palace. On March 24, 2026, 2735 km away, the Ukrainian government reported that a Russian drone strike damaged the 18th-century Bernardine Monastery in Lviv. On the other side of the world, the century-old border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, in part over the ownership of the nearly 1600-yearold Preah Vihear Temple, brought armed conflict to the complex’s feet, causing hundreds of casualties and reportedly damaging the site. In 2023, during Israel's ongoing war in Gaza, Israeli forces shelled and bulldozed the site of the ancient port of Anthedon, founded around 520 BC and occupied until the 12th century. All of these sites were either UNESCO World Heritage Sites or, as in the case of Anthedon, on the tentative list to become one. As armed conflict sweeps the globe in the 2020s, inherited archaeological, architectural, religious, and traditional practices – collectively known as cultural heritage – have become both a common casualty and a direct target of state violence. Although this devastation has not yet reached the European Union, much of the continent still bears the scars of 20th-century war in its collective memory and cultural heritage. Malta, which endured one of Nazi Germany’s most punishing bombing campaigns during World War II, offers sobering lessons for this more volatile era. [excerpt]